Report: Government Requests Google-Users’ Data 31 Times Each Day
- Posted on October 27, 2011 at 12:00am by
Liz Klimas
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Last year, Google established a transparency report revealing the requests it receives for user data from the government conducting criminal investigations, as well to as record disruptions in service and follow traffic patterns.
Yesterday, Google released an update to its report from January to June 2011, disclosing for the first time the number of users or accounts that were in requests, not just the number of requests.
Wired reports that during this six month timeframe, government requests for user data were up 29 percent, averaging 31 requests per day. Google honored 93 percent of the government’s requests.
Wired goes on to note that the government wasn’t just asking for Google to provide information, but also to take it down:
The search and software giant also received 92 requests to remove data from its services, including YouTube. The requests collectively asked for 757 individual pieces of content be removed. Google says it complied fully or partially with 63 percent of the requests. The company noted it received a request from law enforcement to take down a video showing police brutality and another for videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. Google did not comply with either.
Some things, accorded to Wired, are not included in Google’s report, such as National Security Letters; “national security wiretap and data requests, known as FISA warrants, that are approved by a secret court in D.C. to combat spies and threats to national security”; and information of requested of those outside of the United States.
In its blog, Google writes that it provides this information in its transparency reports to showcase the need for updated Internet privacy laws, like the 25-year-old Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Wired notes that because Google does not categorize requests made to it by type, that it is unclear how many fall under the ECPA. But, although Internet Service Providers and email providers, advocate updating of ECPA, only Google produces such a report. It’s something that Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, told The Blaze he thinks more sites should do.
“[Google's report] is a wonderful tool,” Nojeim said. “I wish more companies would publish some of their info so people would have a better idea the extent to which law enforcement is obtaining information on their communication.”
Google’s blog post shows the same sentiment: “Yet at the end of the day, the information that we’re disclosing offers only a limited snapshot. We hope others join us in the effort to provide more transparency, so we’ll be better able to see the bigger picture of how regulatory environments affect the entire web.”
Nojeim said that unless the law is changed to provide as much protection online as we expect on our lives offline, then we can expect to see these requests to increase and our privacy to decrease.
[H/T Gizmodo]
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lukerw
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 5:18pmGoogle and FaceBook are both tied into the Government snooper!
Report Post »BenInNY
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 2:51pmWonder if this is how the lerner vids disappeared.
Report Post »Abraham Young
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 1:35pmHey nothing to see here keep moving, herd.
Report Post »paulusmaximus
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 10:44amYea’ whatever you do never use words like bomb, explosives, automatic weapons, attack in a post as you will automatically be on the Fed crap list.You must remember progressives are stupid! :) :)
Report Post »EqualJustice
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 10:42amI use my NORTON search engine. Am I still vulnerable to GOOGLE? How do you know?
Report Post »KangarooJack
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 9:14amHope Bing is still safe.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 5:22pmI think… all Severs are involved in info collection!
Report Post »piper60
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 8:55amThere is no such thing as privacy anywhere outside the offline home, or soonly inside it. Take for example that ads on t.v extolling ADT’s product where you can have video cameras in your house, supposedly so you can feel more secure. It’s really so you can get used to the idea of having them in the house. That makes it easier for Big Brother to move in. Doesn’t anybody remember 1984?
Report Post »Mil-Dot
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 7:00amA comment board that has comments removed because somebody doesn’t like it does not truly reflect the opinions of the populace, just the opinions of the censors. Loriann12 used the word “censors” in her post without even blinking an eyeball. Did you see that. She is already indoctrinated.
Report Post »FEMALL
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 6:56amI broke up with Google in 2008:
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2008/11/12/using-google-searches-to-map-flu-outbreaks/
O=Depression Nation. Anti depressant use> than ever before in history
Report Post »loriann12
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 6:23amSometimes it takes a long time for the censors to read a long email. I’ve noticed my comments eventually show up.
Report Post »blue_sky
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 6:08amIf you are honest to look at the past voting records and rhetoric – only Ron Paul consistently was opposed to Patriot Act that authorize spying and searches without a warrant and violates the 4th Amendment.
Report Post »Obama, Cain, Perry, Romney, Newt, Bachmann were all for the Patriot Act in their interviews if you look in the archive. These political pygmies never looked behind the title.
loriann12
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 6:22amThe problem with the Patriot Act (and yes, I know it came under Bush) is that used properly, it’s great. There is just too much room for abuse. When you have an honest person in office, it will be used against terrorists. When you have a dictator in office (or dictator wannabe), it will be used against their enemies, who will just be labeled terrorists because they want dirt on them. The potential for abuse is what needs to be stopped.
Report Post »RepubliCorp
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 6:39amRon Paul consistently was opposed to Patriot Act, true and I agree. But he wants shut down the military, the CIA, trade and **every** Dept. of _____ and that’s what makes him a kook.
Report Post »Mil-Dot
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 6:47amLoriann12
Report Post »Therein lies the problem with it. I do not trust ANY of them. If they weren‘t pumping muslims into our country like water we wouldn’t have this problem. I have decided that I am going to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. I don’t give a damn what anybody else does with their freedom. I will sleep just fine.
Mil-Dot
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 6:54amRepublicorp wrote: “Ron Paul consistently was opposed to Patriot Act, true and I agree. But he wants shut down the military, the CIA, trade and **every** Dept. of _____ and that’s what makes him a kook”
So Paul wants to close bases protecting other countries and let them fend for themselves instead of us paying for it. What’s the problem there? I never heard him say that he would shut down the CIA, the president doesn’t have the power to do that anyway. CONGRESS does. Free Trade? You are buying that garbage? HA! And shutting down the EPA and the Dept of Education because they are destroying jobs and brainwashing our kids respectively-that is a bad thing? So who are you for there Repub, Romney?
Report Post »novelator
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 8:18amBoy, the establishment Progressives of both parties must be terrified of Ron Paul, the way they keep sending their paid-political posters to bash him with lies.
He doesn’t want to shut down the military. He just wants to bring our guys home from all those bases like in Germany and such. Does Germany need our military protection so badly, or is it another way to launder funds to the German government without calling it what it is–a form of foreign aid?
How about we just quit spending on the world for a while? How about we kick out the third-world UN and withdraw our membership? Just for a while, just long enough for the world, and our electorate, to realize how much the world needs us and how little we the People need the world? How about that? Let’s try it. What have we got to lose except a mountain of debt we the People did not incur and should not be expected to pay for?
Report Post »ZengaPA65
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 8:19amWho the kooks are is people that babble Ron Paul wants to shut down the military.
Report Post »Free2speakRN
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 4:12pmBiden still likes to take credit for starting what is now under a friendlier name, the “Patriot Act”.
Report Post »nightshadow
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 3:57amWhy doesn’t Google, if they are truly interested in our privacy, just use the same thing that DOJ, Holder (obama) and Napalitano say… “the information doesn’t exist!” Interesting that the DOJ want to make it legal for them to lie, but send us to jail if we lie??? Is this what he means when he says, with the prez blessing, “My country, right or wrong!” This was not the country I served while I was in the Army!
Report Post »HorseCrazy
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 10:27ambecause they have many a government contract they dont want to lose.
Report Post »paulusmaximus
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 10:37amI agree I feel as though these progressives are laughing in my face! I have threatened to send my service metals back, they have become emblems of how much the liberals in this country see us as fools, but I know we are all better then they!
Report Post »scout n ambush
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 1:09amWell now i feel better about google buying yahoo.+ sarcasm
Report Post »BurntHills
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 1:09amit all goes back to the fuhrer wannabe. obama is so consumed by his psychotic fuhrer cravings for adoration that he needs to know who googles what, like how many Americans and which of them googles “WE HATE OBAMA” and “OBAMA IS DOG FECES ON OUR BOOTS”.
Report Post »Elena2010
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 1:01amWhat is happening to our country?
We have privacy to destroy another human being thru abortion, but no privacy elsewhere? Where is the Supreme Court now?
Report Post »Dustyluv
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 4:06amLook in the left pocket of any Progressive and you will find them. The SCOTUS has not interpreted law according to the Constitution for many mnay decades. They are as useless as the Government teat suckers they allow to have welfare.
Report Post »phillipwgirard
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 12:43amIf you believe in and want to defend the constitution please go here, and pass it on, thank you, http://www.patriotsunion.org
Report Post »revel222
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 1:54amAre you for real? This video shows what really needs to be done. Action is what we need!
Report Post »phillipwgirard
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 12:29amsomething tells me they’re ALL in bed with big brother,
Report Post »lylejk
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 12:23amI don’t Google; too many other search engines to bother with them and their leftest agenda. :)
Report Post »lodgerat
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 1:40amProblem is the other search engines do the same thing. I wonder how long it will before government agents show up at your house and you disappear for what you post.
Report Post »TomFerrari
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 7:35amTSA is now stopping people randomly on the highways!
TSA !
ON THE HIGHWAYS !
What in the HELL is going on!?!?
We now have a new federal police agency?
They will next be busting down your front door – without a warrant.
“but they are only for transportation” you say?
well, we thought they were airport only, now they are on the highways.
We have seen how government works without the constraints of an ENFORCED, BINDING, Constitution! They will bust down your door, then, their teams of lawyers will say, oh, he owns a car which is transportation, and, since he COULD have been preparing something sinister in his garage where his car is kept, we had the right to bust into his house where his transportation is housed.
It’s our own fault for allowing it to happen.
Report Post »ChiefGeorge
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 12:20amI use Gibiru!
Report Post »theblessedhope
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 12:17amuse a different browser,startingpage does not keep your IP :)
Report Post »novelator
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 8:26amRight on!
I use startpage.com, too.
The hell with anybody in bed with the Bilderbergs and this tyrannical Federal Government. I don’t Facebook either, for the same reasons.
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